A new study has found that a higher amount of fat around the heart is linked to more serious heart damage after a heart attack.
These findings were presented at EACVI 2025, a major heart imaging conference held by the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging.
Heart disease remains the number one cause of death worldwide. It is responsible for about one in every three deaths, with heart attacks and strokes making up 85% of these cases.
When someone has a heart attack, the level of damage to the heart muscle often determines whether they survive and how well they recover. That’s why researchers are looking for new ways to find out who might be at greater risk.
In this study, scientists focused on a specific type of fat called epicardial adipose tissue, or EAT. This fat sits directly around the heart and the coronary arteries. When EAT builds up too much, it can cause inflammation and put pressure on the heart.
Over time, this can change the structure and function of the heart muscle, making heart disease worse.
It was already known that EAT is linked to clogged arteries and major heart problems. But in this new research, scientists wanted to see if the amount of EAT could predict how much damage the heart suffers during a heart attack.
They used a detailed imaging technique called cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) to look at the hearts of patients soon after a heart attack.
The study included 1,168 patients who had heart imaging within 10 days of getting treatment for a heart attack. Patients were divided into four groups based on how much EAT they had.
Those in the highest group had more severe heart damage compared to those in the lowest group. These patients were also slightly older (average age 66 vs. 63) and had a higher body mass index (BMI 28.9 vs. 27.4).
People with more EAT had larger areas of heart tissue affected by the heart attack and more areas at risk of further damage. Interestingly, they had less damage to the heart’s tiny blood vessels (called microvascular obstruction), and there was no difference in how well the heart was pumping between the high- and low-fat groups.
Ms. Clara Hagedorn, the lead presenter from the University Hospital Göttingen in Germany, explained that measuring the volume of EAT using imaging might help doctors better understand who is at risk of worse outcomes after a heart attack. She said this method could provide more useful information than traditional risk factors alone.
Dr. Alexander Schulz, another researcher from the same hospital, added that more research is needed to understand how fat around the heart causes damage. Since heart attacks usually happen after years of heart disease, finding and helping patients with high EAT earlier might help prevent serious events.
In the future, using simple heart scans to measure this type of fat could help doctors identify at-risk patients and take action before a heart attack happens.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that apple juice could benefit your heart health, and Yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that Vitamin D deficiency can increase heart disease risk, and results showing Zinc and vitamin B6 linked to lower death risk in heart disease.
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